Forewarning, defensive strategies, and narrative persuasion

Narrative transportation is a process of emotional, cognitive, and mental imagery engagement with a story, which often results in greater agreement with that story's themes (e.g., Green & Brock, 2000). Previous research (e.g., Green & Donahue, 2011) has shown that people are often unwilling or unable to resist narrative persuasion, despite a motivation to do so. The current studies directly examine different defensive strategies to resist narrative persuasion. Study 1 directed participants to adopt strategies to either attempt to remain unaffected by a narrative or to actively counterargue counter-attitudinal themes of the narrative. It found that, contrary to the hypothesis, preparing counterarguments may be more effective than attempting to remain emotionally unaffected, although neither strategy entirely eliminated persuasion. Study 2 attempted to demonstrate that people spontaneously are less transported into a story after being previously warned of the author's persuasive intent, but are more transported when warned of the topics and themes advocated by a persuasive narrative. Again, the hypotheses were not confirmed. Possible reasons for the studies' failures are discussed, as well as findings that may be useful for future research.

Creator

Carpenter, JordanAffiliation: Department of Psychology and Neuroscience
College of Arts and Sciences

Thesis advisor

Green, Melanie C.

Title

Forewarning, defensive strategies, and narrative persuasion

Language

English

Type of Resource

text

Genre

Dissertation

Publisher

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Date Graduated

2013-08

Publication Date

2013

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

Thesis degree discipline

Psychology

Use and reproduction

The author has granted the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill a limited, non-exclusive right to make this publication available to the public. The author retains all other rights.